Monday, November 19, 2012

It's Monday: I'm Back, But Barely

You know those Rapha videos that are supposed to convey suffering? The ones were people on exquisite handmade bicycles ride across beautiful landscapes while wearing foppish scarves and facial expressions that make them look like they're trying to solve math problems in their heads while someone gently flicks their testicles with thumb and middle finger? Well, that's not suffering. That's a vacation.

No, if Rapha really want to capture a "suffer fest" then they should make a video of a move. I don't mean one of those Portland moves where fifteen people portage a futon, a bunch of houseplants, and a litter box across town on their cargo bikes. No, I mean areal grown-up move, with trucks and elevators and traffic and lawyers and people stepping barefoot on staples inadvertently dropped by the cable guy and then crashing through French doors. Because this is not impressive:

Strap a couch on each of their backs though and maybe you're getting somewhere.

In any case, I'm pleased to report that my family and I have successfully moved from one residence to another, and we now live in a warren of boxes so labyrinthine that we must carry flags around with us lest we get lost going from the kitchen to the bathroom. As for where we live now, I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out myself, but I can tell you that when I look out my living room I see the Statue of Liberty, and my study offers an unobscured view of the Empire State Building, and my bedroom balcony overlooks the polar bear habitat at the Bronx Zoo, and my indoor swimming pool has a glass bottom that overlooks the Goethals Bridge. Also, I did notice that in the comments to last Monday's post a number of people speculated that I had relocated to Queens, which surprised me. I mean, I said I was moving. I didn't say I was giving up on life.

Though to be fair, in this case the baby storage closet actually has its own closet:

But this apartment was different. “We both had that immediate feeling,” Ms. Fox said.They loved the high ceilings, large windows and prewar character. They didn’t mind the fact that the bedroom was on the small side. The requisite extra room, in use as a child’s bedroom, had a closet. There was even a wood-burning fireplace. The asking price was $579,000, with maintenance in the high $800s.

"Extra room" is brokerese for "windowless firetrap." I'm sorry to bore you with matters of real estate, but the truth is all New Yorkers are deeply obsessed with the subject, and when you're moving you become doubly so.

Yes, it's a familiar story here in New York. A farm girl comes to the big city and settles Red Hook, where her rugged wardrobe and quirky country bumpkin ways are, by an accident of geography and demographics and the zeitgeist, the absolute height of urban chic:

Ms. Kirshner, 27, grew up on a farm in Washington State, home to goats, sheep and, yes, chickens, which when she was young she was charged with caring for. As an adult living in Brooklyn, she arranged to have chickens again, for the eggs, but mostly for fun. The four she currently has — Chicki Minaj, Hillary Chicken, Black Betty and Salt Hen Peppa, who is also called Cookie Dough — were born in New Jersey in May.

Then, a giant hurricane comes and threatens to sweep her chickens out to sea, but her neighbors rescue them just as they're up to their wattles in storm surge:

“On Monday night as I was getting the news that I’d lost pretty much all my belongings, I was also getting news that someone had heroically saved my chickens!” she said.Ms. Swenson and her partner, Monica Byrne, who live above the restaurant, decided to huddle at home.When the water began to rise, Ms. Byrne and Ms. Swenson headed over to the lot with the chickens and plunged into chest-deep water to save them.“We had to,” Ms. Swenson said. “We’re big suckers.”

Suckers is right. There is no way on Lob's red Earth that I'd risk my life--or even get the slightest bit wet for that matter--to save a bunch of pending Chik-fil-A sandwiches. But then again, clearly I don't have what it takes to live in today's Brooklyn--by which I mean huge amounts of money and a willingness to die for barnyard fowl.

Nevertheless, I do owe Brooklyn a tremendous debt of gratitude for being the place that nurtured me my entire adult life. Indeed, this past weekend I had what felt like sort of a symbolic "last ride" out of the borough. Sure, my tires will roll upon it and I will pull over to surreptitiously pee on it many, many more times, but merely as a visitor, and perhaps never again as a resident. As I rode along the Great Hipster Silk Route, I was stricken by the fact that roughly every 20 feet there was somebody photographing or filming something. Either it was the woman taking pictures of "street art" on some warehouse-turned-luxury condo, or the shitty skateboarders filming each-other failing to land tricks off the Jersey barriers along the protected bike lane, or just the absurdly trendy couples snapping Instagram shots of one another's outfits. Brooklyn is increasingly becoming a place of self-invention, and having invented a persona for myself over the years that is as fatuous and ersatz as any, I have now moved on, secure in myself, delighted by my new surroundings, and looking forward to pointing and laughing at the place from whence I came from a comfortable distance.

Speaking of laughing at stuff, a reader who was uncomfortable at the idea of laughing at someone's stolen bike recently sent me this photo:

I, however, have no such compunctions. As they say, when life gives you lemons you make lemonade, and when life steals your artisanal bamboo bike you make an artisanal sign that's probably worth more than the bike itself. It must be crippling to live the artisanal lifestyle. First you spend a bunch of time making a bike out of sticks, and then it gets stolen so you spend a bunch more time making a fancy sign, then maybe someone finds the bike and you spend three more weeks making them a hand-lettered Certificate of Gratitude on parchment, and so forth. It's a vicious cycle of arts and crafts. At the very least, if you're going to turn your stolen bamboo bike into an art project, you should paint a decent "Wanted" poster:

The first place I'd look for the stolen bamboo bike would be in his droppings, though you'll be lucky to find anything rideable.

Snobbo, you missed an opportunity last week to poke fun at Cipo, Pippo, and Il Assassino at the Gran Fondo in Miami. I mean, you can still stomp on them retroactively and we would still love it. Jus' sayin' ya know.

Shit, if I knew that the Kneel before ZOD guy/gal was right behind me, I probably would have exploded forward onto the podium. That was too close for comfort.

Please don't keep us in suspense any longer wildcat, which borough did you move to? sounds like queens is out, which rules out SI. that leaves Manhattan and the Bronx. I don't see you in the bronx, so i would guess manhattan. Since you said you were moving from brooklyn because it cost to much i would say you either are somewhere north of 125th street, Washington Heights as mentioned above is a good guess. a nice place, reasonable prices and room enough for you, you wife, 17 children and 7 artisnal hand crafted bicycles. Welcome to Manhattan. If you did move to the bronx. sorry to hear that. In any case, I don't blame you for leaving twee-hipster Brooklyn. Even a short visit there triggers my gag reflex and not in a good way.

But this apartment was different. “We both had that immediate feeling,” Ms. Fox said.

9 months later, the place is too small.

Brooklyn is like Toronto. I wandered into a condo complex in Toronto last week. On the ride up the tiny elevator, I asked the lady next to me which floor the model suite was on. She said she has no idea and to get the fuck out of her condo.

But that $500K will soon be worth $5M, because real estate is simply too big to fail.

I'm think of renting out my garage..um..."studio suite" to some 30-something Torontards for $3000/mo.

you forgot one detail of the nytimes article; the farm girl's boyfriend is a graphic designer who bikes to work.

very much reminds me of cambridge, ma circa 2004... which, if brooklyn follows this trend, will, in 10 years, be completely overrun by douchey 50&60-somethings milling around a whole foods lot trying to figure out which prius and/or recumbent is theirs.

I talked with a gentleman at The National Chicken Registry and he confirmed that the bird being clutched to the bossom of the toboggan'd lass is from the DIRECT BLOOD LINES of.....wait for it..........

i just hope your new surrounding still give you ample access to hilptsers, fixie devotees, those rich kids that try to live like pilgrims and have taken up some 17th century profession making hand forged horse shoes that get shipped to portland and at least a healthy dose of tri-dorks to keep things interesting.

well, if Queens is giving up on life, then you definitely didn't move to the bronx. Staten Island would suit your personality, but I am going with Upper Manhattan, like Inwood or Washington Heights or something.

We missed you. But you will be happy to know that Babble and McFly kept the discussion going while you were gone. It was kind of like standing around a bonfire after the flames had died, but at least it was still warm.

You missed some comedy gold while you were gone. Specifically: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cipo-a-crowd-favourite-in-miamis-gran-fondo-giro-ditalia Immediately after I looked at the CyclingNews article I jumped over here to see what Your Blogginess had to say about it. I was sad when I remembered that you were on hiatus.

Anyway, I am sure that Cipo's sperm are still working their magic in Florida and that next season we will have a crop of little Cipos running around, so it's probaly still safe to write about it even though the blessed event was over a week ago.

Excuses excuses. Yarpo needs to be focusing more on the top 5 spot he/she missed by some mere fraction of a minute and looking at how to improve performance next time out, not celebrating with exclamation mark a fairly comfortably had top 10 spot. Anyway, if he/she had been realistically in any potential podium position, rest assured that ZOD would have expertly drafted until whoosh time (ZOD)

I say I say there I am about to go all Rhode Island Red and peck this Agri-Hipsters eyes out if she does not quit PULLING ME OFF SALT HEN PEPPA when I about to get my squirt on. Hell it only takes 8 seconds I SAY I SAY let me ride that thing 8 seconds. IT'S A JOKE, SON! DO YA GET JOKES?

The girl on the weed bike had an incredibly luxureous maine of Joan Jett Black hair. It was lustrious, I bet she eats that expensive IAMS dogfood or something to achieve such an exquisite shock of black gold.

I have patented a folding hemp mixie that when in the open position can be ridden as a conventional bicycle and when folded becomes the most audacious artisanal bong/bamboo ridged rhodesian power dildo.

For that kind of money you could buy a place around where I live big enough for a personal cyclocross circuit. Except you would soon realise that cyclocross is for "woosies" and take up motocross like everyone else.

Snob, Welcome back and congratulations on successfully moving all your stuff from one part of America to another (while simultaneously digesting the devastation of your childhood stomping grounds.) That’s a heavy load.

And I love wolf calls, just not wolf culls. RCT - that sanctuary you rode through this weekend on yer pocket rocket - there's a list of the wildlife in the preserve, and yet none of the native predators live there anymore.

Yikes!My first thought at the bicycle taxidermy was that it was neat. The second thought though was that we might see one on the wall of some fat redneck who drives a huge Ford F-150 and is proud that he plowed down a "damn" cyclist.

I just couldn't resist commenting that my "rugged wardrobe" here is comprised entirely of clothes charitably given to me in the days after the hurricane, because mine were all soaked in sewage and seawater.

Still, I get that this is all pretty funny and ridiculous. Isn't that why the NYT wrote about it in the first place?

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!